


The Edge of the World

by infinite_regress



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Romance, Second Chances, meeting out of order, remembering, whouffaldi, whouffle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 23:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8598175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinite_regress/pseuds/infinite_regress
Summary: The Doctor remembers Clara, his memories return in a flood, and he makes some questionable choices. Luckily Clara is there to pick up the peices





	

Once, he’d taken Clara to the edge of the world. A great waterfall, on a distant planet, so powerful the cascade of noise drowned out thought, and the water formed white foamy sheets in swathes and curtains that went on for a hundred miles.  

The memory crashed back on him, with a flood of others, the moment he stepped back into the TARDIS after leaving Coal Hill School. He slumped in the easy chair in the console room, disorientated.

There had been an empty space, a dark, painful void, in his memory where she once was.  He remembered their adventures together, but  of the woman herself, how she looked, the way she smiled, there was nothing. Until, of course, there was.

Now he saw her face; the way her lips curved into that sad smile, the knowing kindness in her big, brown eyes.  He heard the ghost of her joyful laugh as she spun around the console while he tapped in co-ordinates for the wonderful places he felt compelled to show her.

He felt the soft touch of her palm on his face. He brought his own hand to his face, and murmured, “I’ve missed you, Clara Oswald.” He closed his eyes, because words she whispered to him in the cloisters were echoing in his ears.

       “People like you and me, we should say things to one another.”

       “We don’t have to, Clara. We already know.”

       “Yes we do. But I’m going to tell you anyway. I love you.”

The world disappeared and he was lost in her eyes. He should have told her then he felt the same, pulled her closed and kissed her while he had the chance. But, there was no time, no time for anything with the General breathing down their necks and Ohilia lurking, and anyway he was choking on the truth. So did what he always did. He ran away.

#

He stood by the waterfall, watching the water crash to the endless depths below, disappearing into darkness.  He and Clara had stood in this very spot, he was sure of it, on one Wednesday or another back when the universe had colour. And as he stood there, the first bad idea formed in his mind.  It was cheating, he knew, but he’d never much cared for the rules, and he cared even less as the centuries tumbled on in their incessant chase.

So, that was why the Doctor stepped back in his TARDIS and rematerialized about a mile due south of the spot where another TARDIS stood. Hearts picking up pace, dry mouthed, he stepped out onto the planet. He wouldn’t cross his own time line, he’d just watch. Just see, with his own eyes, the way the wind whipped her hair, and she laughed into the storm. There was no harm in looking.

He dodged behind the TARDIS, a palm flat on her blue panels. She tingled to his touch, a little more jangly than usual, a bit irritated, he thought. As if she knew what he was doing there and she most certainly did not approve of his voyeurism.  He swallowed hard. In the distance he saw them.  Clara and himself, watching the steaming torrents of white noise tip over the edge into the void. She laughed, and grabbed his arm, and they stood side by side. How long was this before the Raven, he wondered. He never could keep track, so many days, all jumbled up and back to front. The life of a Time Lord didn’t lend itself to filing memories in date order.  But it had been a good day. He could tell by the way he held his shoulders, the way he glanced over often at the woman beside him, and laughed as she spoke. Yes, it had been a good day.

He pulled back as they turned and walked toward the TARDIS.

“Are you sure we haven’t been here before? I think I remember it, somehow,” Clara said, frowning, and having to trot to keep up with his long strides. Why did he do that, he wondered, frustrated with himself for not treasuring the time he had with her. Why didn’t he wait, hold her hand, and make the most of each moment?

“Perhaps you came with your _other_ time travelling friend,” he quipped.

She batted him. “You know you’re my only time travelling friend.  And,” she added with a touch of indigence in her voice, “I waited up last Wednesday. Where were you?”

“You did? Oh, you know, galaxies to reboot, dictatorships to dismember. Or maybe that was the day I took Shirley Bassey for cocktails. Did I ever  tell you about that?” Clara sighed and shook her head, and followed him into the TARDIS.

And that was when, as his own blue box vanished before his eyes, the Doctor had the second bad idea he’d had that day. What was the point of being a time traveller if you let a perfectly good Wednesday go to waste?  

#

“What sort of time do you call this? I’d given up on you,” Clara said, blearily. She rubbed her eyes as she stood in her bedroom door, and yawned, pointing at her silk pyjamas. It was so hot, she’d got up out of bed to open a window, and then heard the TARDIS. “I was in bed.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but obviously couldn’t, and gathered her into his arms instead. She made a surprised squeak, and after a moment hugged him back.

“I’m an idiot,” he whispered into her ear, and then buried his face in her neck.

His breath on her neck made her shiver, and she heard his voice catch in his throat. What had he been up to now?  She pulled back from him slightly to look at his face. Those ancient blue-grey eyes, sometimes flinty and terrible and other times red-rimmed and vulnerable, right now, he seemed a little lost. She felt the need to reassure him. “It’s okay,” she said after a moment. “I’m glad you’ve come. I’ll get dressed again.”  

He still held her. She could feel the double rhythm of his hearts beating softly and she lay her head against his chest.  The gentle coolness of his body in the heat of the London night soothed her .

“Um, you might need to let go, eventually,” she said.

“I expect I will, eventually,” he replied, making no signs to move.

“Doctor. Are you okay?”

He laughed softly. “Me? Of course I’m okay. I’m always okay.”

He let her go and stepped back out of the doorway, as if he was a little self-conscious. She examined his face.  He seemed older, somehow, maybe there was an extra line or two around his eyes. Perhaps his eyes were softer than she’d seen them. His silver curls were just as wild, though, the way she liked them, and she fought down the urge to reach up and touch his hair.

For a moment, his eyes burned into hers, full of a longing she’d always known was there. It was a need she’d felt herself and run away from so many times, telling herself _that’s not how this works._  He’s a supernova, burning so bright he might blind her. But, there’s a deep darkness within, a black hole at the centre of everything where the weight of eternity collapses in on itself crushing everything in its path. How easy would be for him to become that which he dreads the most? Anyway, she’d promised Danny, she’d never say it to anyone else.  She took a breath, and before either of them did something they might regret, she took a step backwards.

“I’ll just be a tick,” she said, and with a roiling mixture of relief and regret burning in her chest, she closed the door.

#

“That went well, Doctor Idiot,” he mumbled as Clara closed the bedroom door.

“What did you say?” she called

“Nothing. Look, there’s an eclipse of the twin suns on Yfiddier Six. Or we could go to the ice caverns on Venus.”

“What? There’s no ice on Venus.”

“Not yet. But there will be. Given time the hottest fires burn out,” he said. Did they? He didn’t see this flame in his hearts dying any time soon. It felt like a keeper, this terrible wound in his soul. And here he was pouring salt into the gash with reckless abandon. _This_ was why they had to part. These feelings really were too strong to be trusted. He thought of leaving there and then. She’d be cross, but come next Wednesday she’d glare and forgive him.

“I just read Conan Doyle’s  ‘The Final Problem.’ How about taking me to the Reichenach Falls?” she said.

The Doctor scoffed. “What, the paltry trickle where Sherlock Holmes fell to his alleged death? Pft. You want a waterfall, I’ll show you a waterfall,” he said, and with that he was locked in.

She’d thrown on her green coat over a blue dress, sensible shoes.  She picked up a brush and shot him a look that dared him to complain about her need to preen.

He had no complaints, he just watched her pull the brush through the brown gloss of her hair, and remembered the way it smelled, apples and something he couldn’t place, when he held her close. How had he not noticed before the way the light made the chestnut in her hair glow softly?

“You’re staring at me now,” she said, bluntly.

He flushed. This wouldn’t do. It was a monumentally bad idea.  He’d have to take these memories from her, and if he had a shred of sense, he’d do it right now, press his fingers to her temple and erase these past minutes. He’d done it before.

Instead, he offered her his arm. “Ma’am, the waterfall awaits.”

She took his arm, and he felt her glance at him from the corner of her eye. “Who are you and what have you done with the Doctor?” she said, lightly, but he had the feeling she was only half joking.

#

She’d watched him in silence from the easy chair as they spun through the space-time vortex, hands in her lap, unusually silent. Then as they landed, she’d taken his hand as they stepped from the TARDIS, and let her small fingers twine through his as they walked toward the waterfall that disappeared over the edge of the world.  It was if she knew what he needed. When they reached the edge, and the water danced through the sunlight, scattering colours across the hillside, and the crashing roar of the cascading falls drowned out reason. She turned her back on the rush of the falls, put her arms around his waist, and standing on tip toes spoke into his ear, above the pounding of the water.

“I trust you, Doctor. And because I trust you, I believe you’re doing whatever it is you are doing right now for a good reason. And god knows you were there when I needed you most.”  She met his eyes, and he knew she was remembering a volcano, and a grave yard, and the pain of losing someone she loved. She went on, “What do you need, Doctor?”

He choked, unable to speak for a moment.  She knew. She’d worked everything out in the time it had taken to hop here. That was Clara. Penetratingly smart, always brave, generous.

“Time,” he said. “Time with you.”

She didn’t ask why, or what had happened, she just gazed up at him and smiled, that soft, sad smile.

“You will make me forget this, won’t you?”

He turned his face away.

She gently tipped his chin back towards her. “I trust you. If you have to edit tonight, to stop messing up the time lines, or whatever, that’s okay.”

“Clara—“

“You are from his future, aren’t you? No, look, don’t tell me. Then I can’t tell him, and there’ll be no danger of a paradox. Honestly. I have a whole lot of amazing memories to look back on. I won’t miss just one.”

He let his breath go, relaxed his shoulders and tipped her chin up with his fingers. “People like you and me, they should say things to one another,” he said, his hearts thundering so loudly he thought she must hear them over the waterfall. “I love you, Clara Oswald.” She smiled at him then, turned her face up towards him in the golden evening light, and there was fire in her eyes.

“I know. You must know, I feel the same.”  She leaned in close to him, and said urgently, “It’s like we’re in a pocket universe right now, Doctor. We’ve stepped outside time. I won’t remember this tomorrow, and that’s okay, because I won’t have to feel guilty about Danny, and you won’t have to. . .” she paused as if she never could put into words what it was that held him back. She shook her head.  “It doesn’t matter. For tonight, let’s just be what we need to be for each other.”  

He pulled her close, gathered her up, and pressed his lips to hers.  The billowing water droplets sprinkled colour across the pale sky behind her.  He felt like he was falling off the edge of the world and into Clara Oswald.

“Do you trust me, Doctor?”

“Always.”

“Then, let go of whatever you are afraid of. I will catch you,” she said, and kissed him back, urgently this time. “And we’ll let tomorrow play out as it should. But for now, just kiss me again.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr for Doctor Who, scifi and writing. 
> 
> https://www.tumblr.com/blog/infiniteregress17


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